Why People Work With Freelancers

As an assigning editor, I can absolutely attest to the truth of this quote from a speech given by Neil Gaiman at the University for the Arts. I hadn’t heard of Gaiman, who writes what might be characterized as literary fantasy, judging by his books, along with comics. Here’s a quote from his bio site:

“Saying Neil Gaiman is a writer is like saying Da Vinci dabbled in the arts.” –Minneapolis Star Tribune.

And here is the wisdom from the speech, which he attributes to Stephen King. It’s good stuff.

“You get work however you get work, but keep people keep working in a freelance world (and more and more of today’s world is freelance), because their work is good, because they are easy to get along with and because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three! Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time. People will forgive the lateness of your work if it is good and they like you. And you don’t have to be as good as everyone else if you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.